A black conservative's place for independent thinking and common sense -- A little oasis for those who got caught up in the momentum of the civil rights movement, but failed to discern the false from the true

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Many people remember the days of the Fairness Doctrine as a period when they didn't even know there was such a thing as the Fairness Doctrine. Here in New York, those of us who were avid listeners to the two Barrys, i.e., Gray and Farber, remember both hosts presenting guests with divergent points of view, but recall no hysteria between "rightwing" or "leftwing." Farber, the self-identified conservative, would amiably offer some preachments about "misguided liberals," but never in a meanspirited way. Gray, the one most listeners considered liberal, counted among his friends and radio guests as many people on one side of the political fence as the other. There was enough neutral, non-political programming to take one's mind off the hot issues of the day. On none of the stations could you find 24/7 political rants.We're familiar with today's arguments concerning the Fairness Doctrine. The general consensus that seems to prevail goes something like: "Keep government regulation out and let the market decide." But what happens if there is more going on here that is perpetuating this one-sided on-air political dog-and-pony show than just the "market?"

Rich McClear, who was a radio station manager, offers his recollections about that period when the Fairness Doctrine was in place, on the New York Radio Message Board (12/09/09). Although he claims that there were occasionally complaints, his recollection of the Fairness Doctrine as basically a benign, unobtrustive instrument is similar to that of many New York listeners. He titled his remarks, "Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine Now!"

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I managed stations in the day of the fairness doctrine, and while I was happy to see it go I have to admit that it was never much of a burden. There was no big brother monitoring me. The fairness doctrine meant that I kept the whole idea of balance in my mind running the station. The doctrine did not call for stopwatch equal time. But somewhere in my program day I had to allow for other points of view.

The biggest complaints came from the right. I ran a station in a pulp mill town and at times when I had Congressman Miller or Senator Tsongas on talking about clear cutting I would get a call saying I was biased, violating the fairness doctrine. I could easily show that I also had our Alaska delegation on who had the pro development point of view. Sometimes it was a pain, but never a major pain.

Now that it is gone I realize how mistaken I was in wanting it to go. The airwaves are public property. A licensee is an agent of the government, in a way, managing a public resource. For that licensee to systematically deny certain points of view on the public's air is tantamount to a government agent censoring the airwaves.

Bring back the fairness doctrine. Now I will probably have my station's NAB membership canceled.

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Loss of the Issues & Views website

Due to the fact that the owners of the company that has hosted Issues & Views - The Website, since its creation in 1997, have decided to host only sites in Alaska, the website linked to this blog is probably lost.

Issues & Views - The Website (www.issues-views.com) contained hundreds of articles first printed in the hard copy Issues & Views newsletter (1983 through 2002), along with newer articles composed in the 1990s.

Although the former host has re-directed clicks to the website to this blog, it does not appear that there will be any rescue of the website's files or database. For this reason, surfers looking for issues-views.com are landing on this blog. (The website is currently being cached by Google.)

I have learned that an archived version of the website is available on Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, this last capture was performed in 2008, so it lacks certain minor deletions and editing done in 2009 and 2010. However, anyone searching for a particular article should be able to find it there.

- Elizabeth (issues@issues.cnc.net)

Racism is not "sin"

Over the years, as whites have worked to defend themselves against the charge of "racism," they have validated this slur by giving it greater importance than it deserves, and thereby helped to institutionalize it as the world's greatest "sin." As to genuine sin, harboring negative thoughts concerning some group is much further down the list of human deficiencies than bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Hamburg, or hacking to death with machetes the men, women and children of an enemy tribe. Now, those are sins! Seeking to force "diversity" down the throats of an unreceptive segment of society is the religious mission of rabid, agenda-driven ideologues. None of this apparent concern for "social justice" has ever been about virtue. It's about power.

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Jacobs and Potter on the un-American nature of "hate crime" legislation.